description:

Flooding in all quarters. Decades worth of erosion in a few weeks. Devastating landslides and avalanches. Hurricane force winds and tree falls. Road, power, and business outages. And then the real impacts to Lake and ecosystems begin. It sounds like the script to an apocalyptic movie, but the ARkStorm scenario described by USGS hazards experts could really happen. An ARkStorm event would be catastrophic - but it does not have to be. The USGS is now working with local communities to use the science, technology, expertise and meteorological data behind the ARkStorm scenario to test the resiliency of communities and expose vulnerabilities usually only realized following catastrophic events. Modeling such an extreme event allows officials at all levels to be prepared when disaster strikes.